Intranet Software Tools

Intranet Software Tools

Intranet software tools come in many forms and are built in many ways. You can select an out-of-the-box intranet product that comes with a full set of integrated features, or you can build your own intranet. Not all products that could serve as your intranet will explicitly self-label as intranet products. For instance, Clearspace[1]is a product that fills the "intranet 2.0" space very well, but their sales people do not refer to it as an intranet product.

There are a few primary software categories that make up the field of intranet product offerings. These products can be organized into four different categories, each category with a few different types of products.

File:Originsofintranetproducts.jpg

Of the current offering of intranet products, some started as CMSs, some started as wikis, some started as collaboration applications, and some were created as intranet suites - sets of integrated applications meant to play the role of a company intranet.

Some intranet products:

Clearspace (collaboration + blog, wiki, social networking)[2]

ThoughtFarmer (intranet 2.0) [3]

SocialText (wiki, blog, collaboration) [4]

Traction TeamPage (wiki) [5]

Ektron (CMS) [6]

Plone (CMS) [7]

SharePoint (DMS, and a development platform) [8]

Confluence (wiki) [9]

Community Server (blogs, discussion forums) [10]

Intranet Dashboard (intranet 1.0) [www.intranetdashboard.com/]

Intelli Enterprise (intranet 1.0 & intranet 2.0)

Sonar Dashboard (social networking)

Some of these products have been focused on providing tools for companies to create outward-facing communities for customers (example: Community Server) and have only more recently started branding themselves as intranet solutions. Others of the products listed above have been created explicitly to play a role within an company.

There is also a quickly growing set of web-based tools that target only very specific elements of what a complete intranet 2.0 product might include. For instance:

Yammer: Status updates, staff directory; like Twitter for the enterprise [11]

Basecamp: Team-based project management

Blogger: Blogging

A key point to understand about the offering of intranet products is that it is a fairly new and growing field. The idea of what an intranet actually is has been transforming recently. Originally conceived in the same way as "web 1.0" websites were conceived, the original intranet was really a fairly static, 1-dimensional reference library. A few people posted content that everybody else looked at occasionally. But now an intranet can include many of the interactive and social features that popular "web 2.0" websites include. Intranet's are becoming platforms for collaboration, knowledge sharing, internal social networking, community building, communication, and "social computing." And they can also still act as a company's internal reference library.

There are many more products that can fit into the intranet space. This outline is just a rough draft overview of the field of products and where they come from. (by, Ephraim Freed)

Introduction

Many organizations and groups set up web based intra and extranets to facilitate communication, collaboration and knowledge sharing. This topic is to explore the technological tools used for these intranets.

Keywords

Intranet, technology, software, technologystewardship

Detailed Description

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Examples in Application

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Related FAQs

Intranets

Intranet Software Tools

Intranet Incentives

Further Information

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